AN INCREDIBLE twist of fate dealt a a double dose of tragedy to an already grieving mum this week.

Just as mum Vanessa Bright-Williams was hearing the “long-awaited truth” at an inquest for her young disabled daughter’s death in hospital, her own mother collapsed and died in an old people’s home.

At exactly the same time Vanessa was walking tearfully from a Caernarfon inquest into the “avoidable” death of 10-year-old Ayesha Wyatt, completely unbeknown to her, her mother Aelwen, 74, had died suddenly, despite care home resuscitation attempts.

Shocked Vanessa told the Herald: “It’s absolutely incredible and so spooky. I just cannot imagine what might happen next.

“It’s already been the worst nightmare year ever, and now this. I just want to scream myself to sleep to get it all out of my system, and hibernate over the winter. Christmas is definitely cancelled.

“We came from the traumatic inquest so relieved that justice was being done for Ayesha, totally unaware that my mother probably choked to death while eating, and she was gone!”

Vanessa, 41, of Penrhyndedraeth, only heard the next morning of Mrs Bright-Williams’ death at the Bryn Blodau home in Llan Ffestiniog, when speaking about Ayesha’s inquest result to her partner’s daughter.

“She said how sorry she was about my mum, especially with everything we had gone through in the coroner’s court. I just froze and asked her what she meant?

“Apparently the police and matron had tried to reach me at home several times on Friday night, but I’d gone to a friend’s in Blaenau Ffestiniog to talk things over and try to take all the inquest stuff in.”

Vanessa – who lives with garage mechanic Ken Evans, 60, at Graig yr Onnen – understood that her mother had been sitting and having a teatime snack with other residents at about 4.40pm, when she suddenly could not swallow and collapsed.

“I heard staff tried to give her a few sips of water and got her into a wheelchair to the medical room, where they tried in vain to resuscitate her.

“Now I’m dreading seeing my mother’s funeral next week, in case the image opens up the wounds of losing Ayesha, and there’ll be another inquest.”

Vanessa said her mother had suffered a stroke 23 years ago, and in the last few years had Alzheimer’s disease.

On Friday, the coroner for north-west Wales, Dewi Pritchard-Jones, had recorded a rare “narrative” verdict under the Human Rights Act on Ayesha’s death.

He had attributed blame to Ysbyty Gwynedd hospital doctors and the medical system, so opening the doors to a negligence case.

VANESSA Bright-Williams will decide in the New Year whether or not to sue NorthWest Wales NHS Trust, after the coroner found medical staff at Ysbyty Gwynedd made mistakes with daughter Ayesha.

Ms Bright-Williams told the Herald: “We feel the truth came out because the coroner agreed we had insisted to hospital doctors all along that Ayesha’s headaches were caused by a blocked shunt – a short tube in her neck – but they would not listen.”

Coroner Dewi Pritchard-Jones said: “Under the Human Rights Act article two, everyone has the right to life protected by law. The State has duties to take ‘all reasonable steps’ to do that. A whole list of failures within the system shows it has failed this act.

“This fatality shows a failure of the profession in general to listen to what mothers, parents and relatives are saying; and there seems still to be an attitude of doctors not listening to nurses, nor passing on information between each other.”

He said: “Ayesha died as a result of complications arising from extreme prematurity, following the failure of those attending to her terminal illness to appreciate her terminal condition.

“I hope lessons will be learned from this, so we do not have to go through anything like it again.

“During Ayesha’s short life the shunt appears to have been working satisfactorily.

“But as a child grows, a shunt should be monitored by scanning, as preferred practice, to ensure it is working as intended.

“When things began to go wrong, and despite the mother’s protests, there were a series of regrettable events. Tapping the shunt was too little too late.”

He added Ayesha died because doctors did “too little too late” to prevent fluid building up in her brain, and she died from complications in Liverpool’s Alder Hey.

Ms Bright-Williams said the shunt had worked well. But she claimed other children with them had up to three replacements in their first 10 years.

Last January she took her to Ysbyty Gwynedd with headaches, but doctors were “more concerned with a lymph nodes infection”.

Consultant paediatrician Dr Lewis Ingram said: “I was told by a junior doctor about Ayesha’s background but there was no mention of headaches.”

She was re-admitted to Ysbyty Gwynedd five days later.

Dr Ingram said: “A junior doctor and senior registrar wrongly concluded the shunt was working. Then we mistook Ayesha’s “posturing” for convulsions. From the information I’d had, I didn’t recognise it was an emergency.

“I later relieved the pressure by piercing near the shunt. I knew there was a risk of a blood clot, but we had to get her to Liverpool alive.”

There, neurosurgeon Paul May had immediately operated on her. He said: “If the shunt malfunction had been detected and intervened, while she was conscious and relatively well, it’s likely she would still be alive.”

A pathologist said the cause of death was respiratory failure due to acute bronchitis and pneumonia.

Ms Bright-Williams described all the circumstances leading to her “happy sunbeam’s” death.Her key points and claims included:Over last Christmas, Ayesha complained of feeling unwell with a chest infection.

A GP on January 2 prescribed an antibiotic to a “normal chatty” girl.

By the next day, she had a swelling around the shunt and had a headache.

GP Dr Metcalf referred her to Ysbyty Gwynedd for hydrocephalus and to check the shunt.

A student doctor suggested swollen glands.

Dr Ingram ordered everything but a neck X-ray. “If the swelling did not go down, I could make an appointment in two weeks.”

On January 8 Ayesha was still unwell, so the GP prescribed a stronger antibiotic. “But by the 9th, Ayesha’s legs were arched up and she was too stiff to move.”

GP visited and advised lots of drinks in next 48 hours. “But because she was arching her whole body, so rigid and heavy in her wheelchair, I insisted on hospital. She fitted and slumped over.”

She fitted again in Ysbyty Gwynedd A&E and was admitted to an almost-empty Dewi Ward.

“A doctor saw her very briefly but failed to return. A nurse was meant to look after her while I phoned the family – but less than 15 minutes later, her legs were tangled in the bed bars, and she was plastered in her own vomit.”

“No-one saw her between 4-10pm. A new doctor came on duty but didn’t have a clue and was flabbergasted by her frequent arching.”

Contacted by phone, Dr Ingram suggested different drugs for possible meningitis. “But by 11pm she had gone into a coma.”

Dr Ingram arrived at 7am on the 10th, discussed the background – but not the shunt – and arranged a CT scan. “He realised her shunt was blocked and was petrified, running around like a headless chicken. He had made a misdiagnosis. Fluid had been squashing parts of her brain so much, she’d had fearful headaches, fits and eventually a stroke.”

Dr Ingram asked Alder Hey for emergency permission to pierce the head to drain away 70 millilitres of fluid. “I couldn’t believe we were in such a life and death situation. I just wanted her anywhere but that madhouse.”

“At Alder Hey it was touch and go while they did a four-hour operation to fit two new external shunts, and remove the clot.” Two more corrective operations followed.

Vanessa spent the next five weeks at unconscious Ayesha’s bedside, with her on and off a life-support ventilator, but eventually deteriorating. The family declined a feeding tube into her stomach.

“I eventually agreed to doctors switching off the machine, and I cuddled her in my arms as she died. It was torture.”